126 Mr. E. B. Tylor [March 14, 



a civilized nation within reach from whom it may have been learnt ? 

 And what is more, how is it that Eiiroj^ean children knew nothing 

 till a few centuries ago of some of their now most popular sports ? 

 For instance, they had no battledore-and-shuttlecock and never flew 

 kites till these games came across from Asia, when they took root at 

 once and became naturalized over Europe. The origin of kite-flying 

 seems to lie somewhere in South-east Asia, where it is a sport even 

 of grown-up men, who fight their kites by making them cut one 

 another's strings, and fly birds and monsters of the most fantastic 

 shapes and colours, especially in China, where old gentlemen may be 

 seen taking their evening stroll, kite-string in hand, as though they 

 were leading pet dogs. The English boy's kite appears thus an 

 instance, not of spontaneous play-instinct, but of the migration of an 

 artificial game from a distant centre. Nor is this all it proves in 

 the history of civilization. Within a century, Europeans becoming 

 acquainted with the South Sea Islanders found them down to New 

 Zealand adepts at flying kites, which they made of leaves or bark 

 cloth, and called mdnu, or " bird," flying them in solemn form with 

 accompaniment of traditional chants. It looks as though the toy 

 reached Polynesia through the Malay region, thus belonging to that 

 drift of Asiatic culture which is evident in many other points of South 

 Sea Island life. The geography of another of our childish diver- 

 sions may be noticed as matching with this. Mr. Wallace relates 

 that being one wet day in a Dayak house in Borneo, he thought to 

 amuse the lads by taking a piece of string to show them cafs-cradle, 

 but to his surprise he found that they knew more about it than he 

 did, going off into figures that quite puzzled him. Other Poly- 

 nesians are skilled in this nursery art, especially the Maoris of New 

 Zealand, who call it maui from the name of their national hero, by 

 whom, according to their tradition, it was invented ; its various 

 patterns represent canoes, houses, people, and even episodes in Maui's 

 life, such as his fishing up New Zealand from the bottom of the sea. 

 In fact, they have their pictorial history in cat's-cradle, and what- 

 ever their traditions may be worth, they stand good to show that the 

 game was of the time of their forefathers, not lately picked up from 

 the Europeans. In the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand it is on 

 record that the natives were found playing a kind of draughts which 

 was not the European game, and which can hardly be accounted for 

 but as another result of the drift of Asiatic civilization down into the 

 Pacific. 



Once started, a game may last on almost indefinitely. Among the 

 children's sports of the present day are some which may be traced 

 back toward the limits of historical antiquity, and, for all we know, 

 may have been old then. Among the 2:)ictures of ancient Egyptian 

 games in the tombs of Beni Hassan, one shows a player with his head 

 down so that he cannot see what the others are doing with their 

 clenched fists above his back. Here is obviously the game called in 

 English lioi-cockles, in French main-chaudc, and better described by 



